Change - transformation - design

I have been transforming my house. This is what I do when I want things to be different.  I figure changing my space will help to make things fresher and it really works.  I started doing this when I was old enough to sit on the floor and lean against a wall and push my twin beds to their new location.

My mother didn't seem to mind that about every month I re-arrange my small bedroom. I had two twin beds a dresser, night stand and a small desk.  Given that my room was only 10 x 10 I really had to get creative.  The walls were covered with posters, drawings and anything I wanted.  One time I made spirals from paper and covered the ceiling. My daddy wasn't too pleased with all that scotch tape.

Towards the end of my mothers sickness she decided that we needed to properly makeover our bedrooms.  We picked out our color scheme and we would get new carpet, drapes, paint and bed spreads. This was strange for our family since we really didn't ever buy anything new.

I thought long and hard about this because I didn't like things to be the same especially in my room. I settled on a Holly Hobby theme.  Hot pink and lime green would be the color scheme. Holly wore a little lime green bonnet and it matched my lime green carpet perfectly.

I have had a lot of time off this holiday and I have had to fight the stories in my head about how I got to where I am today. I am alone but I feel okay unless I think of how things could be different if I had made other choices but I didn't and here I am. I don't think this way except during the holidays. No one gets the perfect life like those Hallmark movies.  My mother certainly didn't.

I know now that she was preparing for her departure and wanted things to be as nice as possible for all of us. She picked red carpet for their room and my sister picked blue. I can see those little rooms in that house and the happiness and sadness we all experience there.

I she was here now she would roll her eyes seeing my house turned upside down.  She would say "nothing ever changes". 

Family - Our original tribe - War

It has been proven scientifically that when you spend time with a person or group of people that your brain chemistry starts to change to match each other while you are together.  This is why when people gather in large groups who already have similar ideas about things can be powerful.  This is why religions through out history called people to come together as an act of commitment to their beliefs..

Even in smaller groups we take on the outlook of the people we are traveling with through life.  The day to day similarity makes us feel like we belong to something our tribe. It isn't acceptable for someone with different ideas to join unless they are planning to assimilate.  There is strength in numbers and if someone doesn't get on board they will be pushed out.

I was listening to an interview with Byron Katey yesterday. For me she really has the answer to mental suffering and it is pretty simple. But that is a different post.  Yesterday she said "when you think someone is wrong it it just because they do not agree with you."  This assumes we are somehow superior in our own beliefs and ideas. She calls this "war".

During the holidays some people end up spending a lot of time with there family. This is when our differences tend to come up.  These people might be our original tribe but now we have moved on and found our own tribe in our everyday life. It makes us feel unsettled that the people we spent our early years with are not like us and and we want to take this one day to try to change them.

With my own family they live in a different world than I do.  Do I think they are wrong? I think they mean well and are passionate about their own beliefs and it is not my responsibility to convert them to mine. If I am pressed I am happy to let them know my own beliefs.

On my recent visit I saw a lot of pain and suffering mostly caused by fear.  Fear of crime and all those people out to get them. Ironically they all live way out in the middle of no where and the likelihood of any of those things happening to them is remote. The mind is always looking for something to do and leans towards fear and negativity.

When I am with my family I imagine that  my own presence of love and acceptance will have an influence on them. It is hard see them suffering but I understand it because I have suffered myself.

Let's face it we all live alone in our heads or with those nasty characters we have created to live with us.  We don't know what is in some one's head or heart we can only bring love and acceptance to the table and be the strong force that makes an impression. This is better than war.

I am spending Christmas alone and happy this year.  I can make a big deal about this or I can enjoy my solitude and know that I am loved from a distance by my original tribe. I have learned how to let myself be happy where ever I am. Merry Christmas.

"I am enough" - short cut to happiness

I have spent a life time wallowing in my own recovery.  I know it had to be done so I don't fault myself but I feel I have missed a lot during my suffering.  My desire is to somehow help other people take a short cut to finding healing for emotional trauma.

I think it is important to know where you come from and whose words shaped you into the person you are today.  Sometimes it isn't words it is maybe a look or in my case a lack of interest in me at all. As kids we take this stuff in and we believe it because it is our only experience.  We think it is true because it was one on the first things imprinted in our little minds.

To find happiness for myself I have had to look a my own thoughts and the phrases I say to myself to find out what opinions I have of myself that hurt me.  At first  I had to stop the negative comments I constantly made to myself.  I had to make friends with the woman in the mirror.

That was a good start and gave me a lot of peace in my life but I still felt like something was missing.  I knew there was more because sometimes I would feel sad and lonely and words of blame would surface.  I would go over everything that brought me to the place I am today.  All the mistakes I made and the people I trusted with my heart.

What I have realized this past year is that I can't change the past but I can stop blaming myself for where I am today.  I am only suffering because I chose to feel the weight of not only my choices but the choices of every other person in my life.  Life is messy and people are messed up.  We want to fix the past so we stay there too much.

I don't believe that regurgitating our past does anything to heal us. It is a bad habit that must be broken to move on. It is narcissism at its best and will keep us from finding happiness with where we are today. We can identify the beliefs we created from those events but then let them go. We are no longer experiencing them unless we relive them in our minds. It is a story and telling our story over and over gives it power over us. We are not our story unless we want to be.

I have been lost for a long time believing that I was somehow "not good enough" and this was why I didn't find the life I imagined I would.  But really it is this believe that kept me from enjoying the times in my life that were really wonderful. I wasn't emotionally engaged and surrounded myself with people just like me. It was where I was comfortable being invisible lost in my own painful thought.

I have had a good life and even though sometimes I wish it was more like a Hallmark movie - who doesn't?  I am thankful that I am healthy and my mind is good and I have a job that I love. I know now that I can decide to enjoy the day and not wish for something more.

Panic - Flow - Spiritual Awakening

I was planning on writing yesterday but had a little scare with my computer.  It crashed and wouldn't even turn back on.  I jumped into action and got dressed and drove to the Best Buy like a maniac.  When I got there the guy said well if it won't turn on then there is no hope.  He proceeded to plug it in and like magic it came on as if nothing was wrong with it.

I felt relieved of course but decided to start moving my stuff to another computer which took most of the day.  I have had that one so long that a few of the keys have stopped working but did that stop me? No.  I just bought a wireless key board. Why do something now when you can wait for a crisis to motivate you into a quick action.

I have to admit that I deleted a ton of stuff yesterday mostly pictured from hundreds of jobs I have done over the past 10 years.  It felt sad but liberating to purge the past. The only jobs on that computer were before the place I am working now. 

It did give me time to wallow in my personal photo past too.  Looking at the people who are no longer part of my life and letting that go again. Sometimes you are just there and you have to it ride out.  I was in a funk the rest of the day with my to do list left untouched feeling flat.

I woke up today feeling like a new person.  I watched Joel and his message was inspiring. He said once we ask for forgiveness the slate is clean. There is no need to mull over our past even to ourselves.  Rehashing the mistakes we made is something that we do to punish ourselves.  It isn't loving and kind to ourselves we need to move on and let go.

It was what I needed today because sometimes when I am alone I think "how did i get here?" and I want to blame myself for bad decisions I have made.  

I have done my best and I am alone because other people decided to move on and I was left behind.  Also I have decided to move on and left other people behind too. Sometimes holding on to something that doesn't work because it is better than nothing isn't good for anyone.

I had an spiritual awakening today with my own tears and forgiveness. In my mine I kept hearing "remember the date"  I wasn't sure what that was about until I remember that today is my mother's birthday.  I am sure she was smiling and consoling me through my tears. 

I have had a life that has dealt me some blows but I feel grateful that I am from sturdy spiritual stock and that I have chosen to search for strength through the pain.  I do believe that if you are open to it you can have a life that is divinely guided and you move with flow instead of against it. 

Dreams - Reality - Green Beans

I had a dream this morning that I was in a cafeteria buffet line and a older guy had put a serving of chicken on my plate with some green beans.  Suddenly he decided that he wanted me to have fish and took my plate back and gave me a piece of fish but in the process threw away my green beans.  I ask for more green beans but her refused and I had to ask for a manager to get my green beans.

Dreams are so real sometimes and I wonder are we really living in a second world.  I know when I dream like this that I have stayed in bed too long. The details were incredible and I remember when I got my green beans I thought this has taken me 45 minutes to get through this line.

I guess it is Thanksgiving bringing on food dreams and I do prefer fish to chicken but I do like my green beans.  I am on my own this year without plans for the day but feeling okay with it.  I have cooked and served hundreds of people on Thanksgiving mostly spending my time cooking and cleaning alone in the kitchen.

For many years I enjoyed the process of cooking a big meal for the people in my life that I loved. Feeling productive and making sure everyone had a meal to remember. When I was young my husband and I cooked for 20 - 30 people some of them strangers to us but without a place to go.

In my last relationship I cooked for my ex's family and my friends.  It is strange to think about that now.  It has been over a decade and the person that did that no longer exist. I don't feel sad today being alone. I think for the first time I don't feel lost and wanting more from my life than what is right in front of me. I am off work until Tuesday and have a few projects on my list to keep me busy.

I have found that only resisting your current situation will bring you unhappiness.  We are taught to want more dream more and I agree with that but not at the expense of rejecting today.  Enjoy the day and if your with friends and family try to not want them or the day to be different and enjoy those green beans.

Depression - Fighting Back - Lies I told myself

My friend who is going through a bout of depression and grief called me yesterday and wanted to spend the night.  It is a good weekend for me since I am off today and tomorrow.  I want to help but not feel responsible for her.  We talked a lot about what she is thinking and saying to herself.  I know all those thoughts intimately since I experienced them myself and really couldn't convey to other people the total lack of feelings I had for life or anything in general.

It was like going down memory lane for me and I showed her the cartoon by Hyperbole - Depression - Part I and II.  Until I saw this cartoon I thought that what I was feeling was unique to me the lack of desire or even sadness virtually no feelings at all.  Until the point of feeling nothing I had longed to stop being sad and stop crying until there was nothing. Nothing felt like a relief at first and then it stayed so long I didn't want to live anymore.  The idea of doing something about that thought seemed like too much work.

A wanted so bad to be somewhere else or really to be someone else.  I wanted a different life somewhere in the future.  I wanted time to just move on.  As long as I wanted something else I stayed stuck. It was only when I finally gave in and just laid in the nothingness and accepting that this was my life that I started to feel better.  I stopped beating myself up for not being someplace else.

I should have gone to the doctor but I didn't have real insurance and didn't want to pay out of pocket. It was the recession and I felt like I couldn't afford to pay for it.  I was at the lowest place in my life and my judgment was bad. 

I am not against medication I do think that sometimes it dulls people down so that the real issues don't get a chance to come to the surface.  With my friend I keep these opinions to myself. She is grieving ending a 25 year relationship and starting over.  This is the first holiday solo and that is always harder than you think it will be. They have her on many meds at this point.

I have suffered a lot and I have also learned a lot from my suffering. I am happy and free today for the first time I don't feel like I need to work on myself.  I just feel like I can enjoy the day as a whole and complete person.

We are naturally self - absorbed and being depressed can magnify that to a point that you are living in a bubble and for me I really didn't want anyone trying to break that bubble.  Every suggestion or idea that someone had for me my mind rejected.  I had to find my way out of the darkness sort our the lies I was telling myself about the mistakes I had made in the past or the idea that I wasn't lovable.

I had to fight back and start being my own Prince Charming and love and take care of my own needs.  You need to be healthy to attract healthy.  You need to be healthy to be free and happy with the life you have been given.  I can love myself now whether anyone else loves me or not.

I feel strong enough to emotionally be there to support my friend without taking on her sadness. It was grace and hard work that brought me back from the darkness and I hope she will find her way. 

Flow - Distraction - Multi Tasking - Compartmentalizing

I have been back from my trip for a week.  It turned out to be a great healing trip for me and I feel freer than I ever have.  Only one call from work which in itself was a miracle.  Last week was quite drama filled but I was rested and not affected by the normal parts of my job.

When you are designing and bringing many people together to create the customers vision it is like running a department where none of the people actually work for you.  I try to be clear and straight forward with how things work but sometimes people aren't engaged.  Both customers and contractors want things to move quickly and rush through the planning process and when something is not like they imagined it was going to be they are upset.

It doesn't matter how many times I repeat it or show them it is like they are too busy at that moment to listen or pay attention.  Not everyone is like that and I can usually tell who will come back to me and plead innocence and expect a miracle.  Luckily I know that I have done my part to insure that everyone is on the same page.  I can't make someone listen that is lost in their own personal version of life so I just try to get through it as peacefully as possible.

I use to think I was always the person that did something wrong. The first call I got last Monday was " You have made a serious mistake on this job."  The old me would immediately think I am so stupid I messed this up.  Now before I have that thought I get more details and I trust myself.  The doubt comes because once I complete a task and move on to something else I file it away.  When I am working on something I give it 100% and shut out other distractions so I don't make mistakes. Then I move on and when a question comes up it takes time for the details to come back to me.

I think they call this compartmentalizing and it really works.  Today we pride ourselves in multi - tasking but all that means is no one or task is getting 100%.  Everything is getting sloppy seconds.  You can't take messages on your watch phone while listening to details of a month long project and not expect to miss a critical detail.  "Hey - You are spending a lot of money - Pay attention."

People shouldn't say "I have lost my mind"  they should say " I am lost in my mind".  I cover myself at work with lots of pictures this seems to waken the other half of the brain. Even though I am complaining here this isn't a regular problem for me but I wish that people were less scattered.

It isn't healthy to live in such a high stress environment created by our own behaviors.  In the past when my phone pinged I felt like was one of those mice in the test maze that was shocked every time the bell rang.  I always think about when you actually go to a store and stand in line waiting and the phone rings and the clerk takes the call and writes down that persons order or answers a long question. It seems you are not as important as the person not willing to even come to the store.

Okay that it enough ranting for one day.  I know I sound old but I cherish peace above all else in my life.  My nervous systems is burned out from all the fight and flight I have subjected it to over the years and I am not interested in making everything life and death anymore.  I will accept what is my responsibility and when it isn't I will do what I can to help get things back on track.

I don't deserve to belong - Thoughts that hurt me

It is amazing just what a teacher life continues to be for me.  I am getting ready to take a trip visiting friends and family.  I have been hesitant to visit my sisters after my last visit resulted in a slump that lasted a few weeks even to the point people commented on my change in mood.  Yesterday I was debating whether to go or not.

I am not sure they really want me there and I feel that I am just another person to manage.  I have spent so much of my time off there and have been disappointed with how I felt when returned home.  Should I subject myself to another one of these visits?  With this thought I got really sad yesterday.  I was thinking they really don't want me there. Then I thought "just another place I don't fit in."  Where do I belong a life long quest that has taken up so much of my life that I have let me opportunities for connection to slip by.

What I realized yesterday it isn't the idea "I don't belong" that makes me sad it is that I don't think I deserve to belong.  I have spent my life trying to find a way out of my own pain and everyone has gone on without me.  Why should they want to include me in their lives I haven't been there for them.

I got to stop right there.  This is just another self absorbed thought that can siphon away my time and energy.  This is just the kind of ideas that hold me back from just living and being content with life the way it is now. 

Everybody is just trying to find there way through life.  I have been blessed with the ability to get past myself sometimes and see clearly just how my thoughts are hurting me. My ego would like to believe that everything is about me but the truth is no one is thinking that much about me. They are too busy getting through there own problem.

I my paralyzing fear of feeling I don't deserve to be wanted. I decided to stop and meditate. This is when I could see the truth and turned it over to a power greater than myself.  I said "you have to work this out - I am out of it."

I got in my car and drove to an art store twenty minutes away.  In that time my sister called and I told her of my plan to visit weekend after next. Everyone was in the car coming back from my nephews birthday brunch.  They were really happy that I was coming but my niece was staying with her boss's kids for the weekend and thought that this coming weekend would be better if I wanted to see her. 

I had already made plans to stop at my aunts and then my friends ending at my sisters. Just in case I decided not to go at all.  I said I would see what I could do.  When I reached the store I sat there in my car and with in minutes my friend called.  I told her about my sister's request she said "no problem we were just going to hang out anyway."   My aunt calls while we are still talking and I take the call.  She says she has been sick I tell her about the change and she says "great". All in about 30 minutes.

As a sometimes self absorbed neurotic I do take responsibility to for everything.  My analytical mind can only see my own part in anything that doesn't go my way.  Yes I haven't always been there for my sister and her family but she was living in a severely dysfunctional situation and didn't really want me to know what was going on.

We have suffered all these years alone with our problems and not feeling we wanted to let each other in on our secrets.  She is 4  years older and wanted to appear to have it all together. This is how we have survived without our mother. Just suck it up and move on. This doesn't work long term.

So I got over myself and thought so what if I haven't done everything right I have done my best.  It is my own self blame that hurts me and drags back to the past.  I am good person and have done my best even if some times it wasn't good enough. 

I am happy to have this blog to gather my thoughts.  It saved my life when I started it so long ago but now it just keeps me honest about my feelings.

Child's Perspective - Past Revisited

I was watching "Field of Dreams" last night.  I can't seem to pass it up when I am surfing the channels and see it there.  I always cry at the end when he plays catch with his dad.  They parted ways early in life and he has the opportunity to see his dad a younger man with hopes and dreams like himself.  I always think wouldn't that be great to have a do over with my own dad.

My dad has been gone more than a decade now and wasn't the kind of person that thought too much about the feelings of other people.  He was a kind man and willing to do just about anything anyone ask him to do without complaint.  He rarely got mad unless you did something that he thought wasn't godly or if you said you didn't want to go to church. He never disciplined us and left that to my mother.

I woke up this morning a little sad and thinking a little too much about my life. Wishing that my life had turned out differently.  After my mother died I never like I belonged anywhere.  When my dad remarried I had to earn my right to be there and ended up like Cinderella with a string of chores that had to be done including babysitting my little sister full time so my stepmother could be free to do what she wanted.  I took this idea of earning my place in every relationship since then. This is why I am so successful in work.

With my dad I always wanted him to show me that I was important to him. He never called me and when I called him once a year for his birthday he would put me on hold several times when the call waiting clicked. He never ask me about my life or even where I was living.  Ironically have I repeated this same relationship over and over in my life. Even with my past friendships they have been with people that if I disappeared it would never occur to anyone to call me and find out what is going on.

I feel really good most days now and very autonomous.  I am spending time with people who seem to want me around and the give and take is more equal. I am a strong person but I don't want to be the only person keeping a relationship going anymore.  I am willing to let the people go in my life that really are only interested in what I can do for them.

I can see that I have have spent my life trying to get over the past.  I can also see that I did this from a child's point of view.  I was wounded and just wanting to feel like someone cared about me. My story has dominated my life and kept me from reaching out. Life goes on and people are busy with their own stories and do not have time to think about me.  I am grown up now and I am reaching out. 

I am taking a vacation at the end of the month.  I am going to visit a friend from childhood.  We reconnected after her mother's death a few years ago and talk every week on the phone.  I am also going to stay a few days with dad's sister.  Over the years she has kept in contact with me.  My cousins live in the same area and I am going to see if they would like to get together.

Part of me feels this reaching out is too late but if I am rejected then I am no worse off than I was before.  I know that my life is the way it is because I was lost in my own pain and stayed busy to avoid facing the feelings I had of not being worthy of love.  Really because I didn't love myself. 

I also know that I am like my own dad in a lot of ways happy to do the next thing and not thinking too much about the feelings of others just getting the job done.

My dad's family keep to themselves.  Not like my mother's family with drama after drama.  They are quiet and autonomous never complaining never asking for help.  I am like them good sturdy genes staying away from drama of any kind. I hope this will be a good visit I really need to get away and looking forward to it. 

Sisters - Sorting thing out - love - conflict

I was taking ice out of ice trays a few minutes ago and remember a funny story about me and my older sister.   On steamy hot southern days I would intentionally wait for my sister to get up and make herself a glass of ice tea and then I would say "please can you make me one too" knowing with my parents sitting there she wouldn't be able to refuse me.

Back then in our house we didn't have an ice maker just those metal trays with a handle that you pulled to break the ice open.  I wasn't really strong enough to pull the frozen arm to get the ice out but that wasn't why I ask her to do it for me.  She hated me we were four years apart and I was a thorn in her side.  At first she was my idol I thought everything about her was perfect and from the outside it seemed true.  Mother mother constantly raved about her.  She had perfect attendance - straight "A's" - she kept her room in perfect order and she never got dirty.

Of course when your eight you don't realize there is a big difference between being eight and twelve. I viewed myself as a problem inferior to her in every way.  I tried so hard but I couldn't be like her it was too hard for me.  I finally let go and decided to not try at all.  It was a relief but I took something away from that decision.  I believed that because I wasn't perfect like her that I wasn't smart.

This thought was based on our years in school compounded by the death of my mother.  I had this belief despite the successes I had once I left school. Even working fast food in while still in high school they wanted to get an age exception so I could be a supervisor. In truth after I decided that being perfect like my sister was impossible for me I never applied myself in school. 

My dad and stepmother were happy to discourage me from college so it didn't cost them anything. It isn't that important in traditionally southern families that girls go to college.  My mother went to college and would have freaked if she had known they weren't making me go.

I made a success of my life becoming the youngest VP in a mortgage company of 1,000 people.  I still have those congratulations letters.  I still felt like a fraud because I didn't have the education that other people had. When I lost my job after 13 years I felt like I was found out.

At 40 I decided to do the one thing I had never done go to college. I always tell people I went back to school but really I went for the first time. I tested out all the remedial English courses but the math I had to start from scratch.  I did it with those punky eighteen year old students.  I had an advantage I wanted to be there and enjoyed every minute.  I got my degree with a 4.0 average because nothing else was acceptable.

I have had a good life with the work ethic both my parents taught me.  My sister is a lawyer but after my mother died she lost her shine and never really regained her love for this world. My mother was a great force in our lives and without her and my dad distracted by his new family we barely made it. Suffering has been the norm for both of us and we accepted early on that nothing in life comes easy.

We both love our work and it has been the one consistent thing in our lives.  She seems really happy now that she has grandchildren and her love for work is wavering.  Now she is thinking she only needs to do the work of two people instead of three.  I am happy for her.

We talk a few times a week when she can squeeze me in coming home late from work. She is always surprised how alike we are but we did have the same mother even if  her influence lasted four more years than mine.

I think our  mother would have been proud of us both.  Of course my sisters traditional life would have met her approval for sure. With me she had to accept very early that I had my own ideas about things and without a logical presentation of the facts to show otherwise those ideas would not be changed.  I preferred punishment to giving in if I thought I was right.

I still believe no human has all the right answers all the time.  We have a right to question what we are being told and even what we tell ourselves. We have to look at the motive behind the words. It isn't easy to go against the majority or long entrenched doctrine but it is important to look at whether those ideas are hurting people.

If you alienate someone it is unlikely you will convince them you are right.  You have to give people love and space to decide for themselves. I always loved the program phrase "attraction not promotion" it gave me the opportunity to figure out my own path.  In church they taught us "let your little light shine" I think this is the same thing.

My sister and I have a worked things out between each other.  She no longer sees me as the brat that forced her to serve me ice tea on those hot summer days.  I am only sad that we had to suffer separately our whole lives when we are so much alike. 
 

Gettting what you want - Mental health

Life is good.  I use to wear those t-shirts all the time it but I didn't really believe what they said and now they represent a time in my life that I was the most un-conscious.  By all means possible from the outside it looked like the perfect life but spiritually I was vacant still carrying the wants and needs from my childhood.  Hoping magically they would get met by the strangers in my life at the time.

Being abandoned by my own family I found different groups of people that I substituted for the imaginary family that I thought I missed out on.  My view of the world was a combination of sit coms from the seventies where you were surrounded by people who loved you no matter what stupid thing you have done. I definitely believed in magic I had to my mother was dying and I wasn't aloud to even acknowledge she was sick.

My sister buried herself in mostly Gone with the Wind.  Being four years older I think she might hold the record for the number of times that book was read in a short period of time.  I am not sure how that book shaped her twelve year old mind.  Maybe she liked where Scarlet pulled herself together and rescued herself.  I can only think of the part where she thinks Rhett has come back to help her and he rejects her.  Scarlet has burned all her bridges. 

I can now see how I was looking for trust and support and imagined other people had family's to give them that and I didn't. Blood is thicker than water. I wanted a shoulder to cry on but from as early as I can remember you are just suppose to suck it up and move on. Crying was not permitted - "I will give you something to cry about" - I only write this because it was shaped my life in a way that makes it impossible for me to be genuine about my pain except in words.

I gravitate to people like me because it feels comfortable.  I remember at my lowest sitting across the table from someone with tears running down my face and not getting even comforting words from that person.  The hard shell cannot be penetrated. I often said about my ex that if I was laying on the ground on fire I would have to say "call somebody".

My parents loved me but they had tough lives.  They said the words but but emotions were mostly off limits.  I think this is why they loved the Pentecostal church where when you were worshipping in the spirit you could be free emotionally.  You could cry or even laugh all you wanted.

My dad  told me the first date he had with my mother she made him go to a prayer meeting.  He said when he walked in he knew this was what he had been looking for all his life. It is a powerful release to be with a large group of people letting their emotions go and freely worshipping.  A celebration of a living God pretty powerful.

I think my point of the post is to say that we are conditioned by our past but if we can see this is just conditioning we can move on and not feel we aren't getting what we want. What we want is to feel safe and accepted.  We want to think that if something happens we will have a soft place to land and Rhett will save us and everything will go back to the it use to be or maybe we will have to start again because we have burned too many bridges.

I think that life is life and that we don't know for sure who will be there when something happens.  It is really frightening to think too much about this but for me I know it will work out.  Families are just people going through life the same as we are and can't magically solve the insecurities we have inside.

When I was sick and sad everyone ran from me.  Slowly everyone drifted away except one person who just made sure I was eating and occasionally getting out. I was physically ill and this was contributing to my already grief stricken mind.  One brought on the other and a crash was inevitable.

I would say to anyone going through something traumatic and having feelings of hopelessness and loss to get your thyroid tested. I know this sounds life a diversion from the rest of this post but a crisis can lead to a physical change in your body and add to an already bad situation. My anxiety was so high that late at night I would run around the neighborhood to try to feel better.

I never ate and when I did it was those comfort foods that heaped more bad on top of bad. I was just surviving and wasn't thinking rationally.  There is a lot of stories like mine out there.  Today my mind is clear and I am happy and healthier than I have ever been before. Mental health and physical health are tied together in ways that we can't imagine.  Your not alone with those thoughts and you can find health and happiness just ask for help.

Finding a way - A trail - The Past

I am the kind person has created a life trail.  What this means is that I keep things from different periods of my life like a trail of bread crumbs just in case I get lost and need to find my way back.  Today I found a church bulletin from 1992 with the name and phone number of a woman I knew back then.

We worked together and were very close.  She lived here but her long time boy friend lived somewhere else.  I was newly divorced and we met during a work out class our company sponsored in the cafeteria once a week.  Ironically they cancelled the class because they said they could feed the entire building cake for what they were paying teacher for our class. You got to have your priorities. 

My friend was a person that was exactly who she was no matter what.  I remember in class when we were doing leg lifts with weights she would groan loudly with every lift.  She asked me one time if I was feeling pain and I remember saying " I guess I am a silently sufferer."  This is so true.

She was also a fundamentalist christian and was in conflict with the fact her boyfriend didn't want to get married.  She was dedicated to her beliefs and I remember going to her house and her mirror was covered with scriptures.  I liked that about her that she was all in no excuses or apologies. 

Once she talked me into going to a women's Bible study.  This was a serious study and the woman running it was very strict.  No talking and you had to come into the auditorium single file.  I felt like it was a group that was trying to keep women doing what they thought the Bible said they should do.
After the way I was raised this militant study of the Bible definitely didn't appeal to me.

Another time she invited me to lunch to meet a women from her church.  I agreed and the woman was nice enough and lunch was fine.  She gave me some pamphlets to look at and invited me to church. Later I found out she was the leader of a group that converts gay people to straight.  I wonder now whether my friend thought I had a girl crush on her.  If I did I didn't know it.  I was newly divorced and lonely.  My husband took all his drinking friends and their wives with him.

I had not found Al-Anon yet and with my husband gone there was a huge void from the drama he took with him. I had a lot of time on my hands and it was good to have a new friend.

She did get married and move away but sadly he died suddenly only a few short years later. The last time I spoke to her she was going on a date with a veterinarian.  That worked out for her I guess I saw on face book they are married and he just retired.  I was happy that she found someone so quickly.  She was always a kind and generous person to me.

She would be happy with me now I have started reading the Bible again.  I have studied many religions so I thought I should commit to the reading it as an adult.  My family treated me with indifference most of my like claiming to be loving Christians the whole time. I never wanted to associate myself with their beliefs.  I didn't want to be like them.  I have finally grown up and found my own way.  I no longer reject my upbringing and associate everything spiritual with them.

It has been an interesting read.  I have my old Living Bible from my teen years.  I even made a groovy cover for it back then.  I am sure people would say it isn't the real Bible because it is interpreted into common language.  In my youth I color coded with three different highlight markers the whole Bible.  I have no idea what the different colors mean now.  I have always had a thing for school supplies so it could mean nothing.  The bulletin fell out of this Bible.  Funny huh?

Meditation - Bill Gates - Thinking

I am not sure I have anything to say today.  The week was an emotional one especially since I didn't rest much last weekend.  Today I worked in the yard and pulled what seemed like a million weeds. It is still pretty hot here but the breeze was nice. I really like the physical part of yard work since most everything in my life is mostly mental.  I have been having problems with my eyes and having to go to bed early just to rest them.

I watched the new Bill Gates series on Netflix last night. The work he and Melinda"s foundation is doing is incredible. He seems like a nice person and in one interview he admitted to his arrogance in the early years.  I thought if anyone should be arrogant it should be him he changed our world in ways that we will never fully appreciate.

Not a surprise but he is a constant reader and carries a huge canvas bag full of books wherever he goes.  He also since the 90's has taken think weeks.  This is where he takes his books and goes to a super tiny house overlooking the water and thinks. Organizes his notes from all the reading and comes out with a plan.

I really like that idea and feel we don't appreciate the value of just gathering our thoughts.  I feel guilty for not have a plan every day or if I am not accomplishing something. Like today I am tired but resting doesn't really seem to be what I need. I need to recharge but I am not sure how.  This series is really worth watching.  In the end I am sure a man like Bill will feel he didn't do enough which is sad.

I think the closest we can get to the think week would be daily meditation.  Just sitting being comfortable doing nothing watching our thoughts go by without reacting. I think I will try that now.

Order and Chaos

This is my birthday month and I gifted myself with a art workshop the past weekend.  Two full days of creating and producing are under the guidelines of a retired art professor.  The instruction given was to be loose and repetitive not really my cup of tea.  I did what I always do and just put something on paper to get me started.  As the teacher circled the room she said really nice drawing but not what I instructed.  I am new to the group and she was cautious about her direction at first. I finally said "give me direction" she said to draw the pile of bones on the table without looking at the paper.

I did it an produced a decent drawing.  My middle name is order and her middle name is chaos.  I am glad that I didn't look at her work before the workshop or I might have decided not to sign up. At the end of the first day I was tired and asking myself "do I care about doing art anymore?"

Doing art has been a part of my earliest memory.  I kindergarten we colored one day and painted the next every day they would ask us, "Did you paint or color yesterday?'  I always said, "I colored" so I could paint.  I loved the vibrant colors of the tempera paints.  In my teens I skipped my other classes to hang out in the art room telling my teacher that I had a study hall. Art was my salvation even though I never was seen a gifted by the teachers or encouraged in any way. Artist can be elitist amongst themselves it is a competitive world and insecurity runs deep just like any place else.

I feel that just like anything else the ego needs something to make it feel special.  Something to identify with " I am an __________."  This what we do not who we are and it is hard to give up if you don't want to do it anymore.  Who will I be without this label? 

When I crashed into darkness this was what I felt.  I knew I was not longer the person I use to be.  I was floating around with no identity with the people around me waiting for that person to come back.  This is a trap that makes us feel stuck in places we don't belong anymore for a really long time.  For me the change was forced on me and I felt I couldn't live without being the person I was before.

I felt I was floating out there being nothing. I knew I couldn't go back so lingered for along time in no where land. Nothing interested me for a long time.  This was so painful but I got use to it and quit fighting it and when I finally let go I felt lighter. I did the necessary things I had to do to get through the day and that was it.

We are taught that we are who people say were are or who we say we are even if it doesn't feel right anymore. Art was my salvation from those days in kindergarten.  I still love color and create everyday in my work but I don't need to be saved anymore.  I can do art because it is fun and not because I need to get the pain out. Ir isn't who I am it is just a couple days filled with art.

I loved the workshop and will do it again.  The group was very supportive of each other. It was scary at first when my own ego felt like I didn't belong there with other artist but I go over myself.

I met some interesting people and by the second day I felt refreshed and put out some nice drawings. The teacher said " I know I am intimidating but I mean well."  I said "people say the same thing about me."  I have no problem with straight shooters it is those that don't say what they mean that can blind side you.

It was good to get out of my comfort zone and I do have some ideas for art projects.  It was exhausting at first but chaos can be fun if you just let go.
  

Addiction - Running - Mental health

My friend has be sleeping here at night and it hasn't been too stressful for either of us. I sense that her spirit isn't grounded at this point.  It feels like she is floating about trying to find her way very child like we talk about her day and that is it.  I can tell she is isolated mentally in her own world.

I am practicing all my Al-Anon at this point and I am really not interested in saving someone.  Isn't that the first thing we learn that what they are doing isn't any of our business.  I always thought that I was a loving and giving person when I monitored and became obsessed with what my husband was doing.  It was my job right? I lost myself and my life and became the gate keeper and eventually the martyr that was trampled on in the end.

Friday night I got a call "I am on my way" hours later showing up. This took me back to my husband and him calling from the bar and saying "I am on my way" and showing up hours later.  I felt like I was back there for a few minutes the world revolving around one person.  They aren't really thinking about you it isn't personal until they get home and you unleash your resentments on them.

When you are obsessed you have protect yourself from yourself.  I know for me back then I was terrified that I was losing everything that was important to me and it was true.  It was slipping away and I couldn't stop it.  I thought I had the power to stop it so I just kept trying and and failing. It was my belief that I could stop it that kept me sad and miserable.  It made him feel that he had to be constantly on the defense and I became the enemy.  He drank to cope with the unhappiness he felt about himself and his life. This is what we do run away with drink, food, electronics and even managing other people.

What we choose starts early when we are kids.  This becomes our go to for solving the scary feelings we have about ourselves or our situation. It feels like if we don't run and the feelings catch up with us that we will die. The truth will be so unbearable that it will consume us and it might but for only a moment.

In my mind I didn't want to start over.  I had lost everything that I thought would be a part of my life forever.  I blamed myself that it was something I had done or worse who I was that made this happen to me.  I didn't know how to be different I had spent my life working to be the best person I could be and it wasn't enough.  I felt there was no place to go so I check out.  I numbed and went through the motions of life without actually participating.

Mental health is like addiction for the family.  Just like addiction the person has found a way to exist within the addiction or illness until something sends them over the edge.  I think our minds are strong and are always looking for away to cope with the reality in our heads.  Our self talk can be enemy number one and for a lot of us it is strong and smart and makes logical sense but there isn't anyone in there to make us question those thoughts.

I remember when I had my breakthrough I was sitting on my porch think I didn't want to live one more day feeling nothing.  My mind spoke to me and said "you are doing this to yourself" and I starting thinking "is this true - could I be doing this to myself? "  The answer was yes.  I was blaming myself for my circumstances and I believed that there was something at the core of me that was not lovable. This explained why I am always left behind by the people l love.

It wasn't a miracle healing and it took a long time to disprove all those thoughts and beliefs but from that day forward I got better.  You have to question your thoughts especially if they are hurting you or making you sad or ruining your life.  "I am unlovable"  this is what I have always believed because every time I was left it proved to my logical mind that this statement was true.

I had to give myself the ultimate gift. I had to let those feelings roll over me and accept those thoughts and face them. I had to accept that what if I am unlovable and couldn't do anything about it.  Once I started to embrace my worse fears it took the pressure off.  I stopped running and just sat with the ugliness.

I still had the power to control one thing I could still choose to love myself. If I can find a way to love myself then it is proof I am lovable.  Could I give myself the unconditional love that I so desperately wanted from other people. It wasn't easy but little by little I did that. 

I know I have been  loved deeply but maybe I wanted something from those people that they couldn't give me.  They couldn't make me love myself and I kept looking for proof from them that I was lovable and couldn't find it. They for looking for the same and it didn't feel like enough for either of us. 

We all deal with our own demons.  It doesn't matter if they were passed down from our ancestors or created by a childhood that wasn't our fault we are just trying to get through each day. We do our best even if sometimes it isn't good enough for other people it is all we have. Getting lost in our minds is easy to do when we are sick or sometimes when we are not just a voice agreeing with us.

Always question your thoughts. Make friends with that other person in your head sometimes they help you to see what you are too scared to look at and can save your life.  When you are lost for some people it is hard to come back and we need help from the professionals. If your life isn't working find someone that will listen and will tell you the truth. 

Finding a way out - Voices

This hasn't been a great week emotionally my friend suffered some sort of mental break and has been hospitalized.  It wasn't as bad as before and actually went to their counselor and agreed to go to a facility. I am going there today for the first time. 

The work week was my long week and it was pounding me every day and again I thought "how long can I do this?" but I do really love it and when you are busy you are efficient and have no choice but to stay in the zone.  By the end of the day Saturday I sat slumped at my desk staring at the screen trying to finish one last file.  I couldn't do it I just saved everything and left.  I went and had a good dinner and came home and crashed.

I feel wobbly today and decided to get dressed and leave the house.  I went to my favorite furniture consignment store but it was only 12 and they opened at 1.  I decided to drive to the used bookstore downtown and look for a bible.  I have had this thought on and off that maybe I should read the Bible as an adult and at least see if there is something new for me there.  I didn't need a Bible because I have a half dozen already but I wanted something besides the King James version.  I have a big credit at the used place so I picked up a couple of versions plus a couple of study guides.

I was raised on the Bible and know more than most about what it says or at least I think I do.  I was listening to Eckhart Tolle who I believed saved me with his teachings by explaining his own mental health issues.  How he separated his inner spiritual self from his stream of thoughts that had him living in fear.  Today the first Bible I opened and the first page I looked at said Eckhart on it  I thought this was a sign.  It was Meister Eckhart  c1260 - 1328 and evidently Eckhart Tolle changed his name to Eckhart after reading is teachings.  The living Eckhart during an interview I saw last night quoted the Bible and I didn't recognize the scripture and I thought I should do some studying. 

I know for a lot of people it is hard to be open minded about religion.  I was indoctrinated from birth and that indoctrination made me strong but the people who were suppose to love me and take care of me abandoned me in the name of Jesus so I rejected the church.  I have investigated a lot of different beliefs and they are really the same at the core.  The oldest religions say the same thing as Christ "do unto to others as you would have them do unto you".  It is kindness, understanding and love that leads us to a better place.

I ended my running around today back at the consignment store.  I saw a 60's orange leatherette chair but I resisted and left it.  I walked next door to the antiques store where I started feeling really sad.  They were playing music from the 70's Baby Boomer music and I thought "I am old" and all this stuff belongs to people who are no longer around".  I was born the last year of the Baby Boomers and I do love that 70's music but I felt tears come to my eyes. After my mother died there was no one to stop us from listening to the devil's music.

I feel lucky that I am not in a hospital but I can understand how people get there.  Sometimes we just can't cope with this life with all it's changes.  When things don't turn out the way you imagined them to then you have to decide where to go from there.  Your mind is always looking for a solution a way to get away from feeling so uncomfortable.  The voice in your head says I can't do this it is too hard and sometimes will take over your mind. 

This happened to me and I am a strong person but too many changes happened at once.  I can't say how I came out of it but it is a miracle. I come from a long line of strong headed hard working people who never give up.  This is the benefit of good genes and my religious upbringing.  I somehow knew there was a way out if I could wait until tomorrow maybe I could figure it out so I waited and little by little I got better.

Today I don't have the negative voice in my head and I don't believe every thought that I have anymore. I do believe in the "Power of Now" and know that if I feel sad and weepy at the store then it is okay and it will pass.

I believe that we have a spiritual core that if we can quiet the mind we find peace.  You can call that the holy spirit or inner spirit it doesn't matter. 

 I am resting and taking care of myself for the next 24 hours.  No work until Tuesday.

Bear at the back door - Towers

It seems I always start my post with a review of the week.  This post will be no different and I have to say this has been a particularly hard week with too much on my plate especially compared to how slow it was in July.  Most days 10 hours or more which leaves very little in the gas tank by Sunday.

That is all I have to say about that.  A line from Forrest Gump which I saw for about a minute yesterday that movie sometimes gets on my nerves.  I slept late hung over from my six day week thinking I would do my usual Sunday ritual and work in my yard but after putting on bug spray and walking around the yard here I am writing this post.

I did talk to my sister for a few minutes this morning using face time while I drank my coffee.  She had accidentally called me while carrying her tablet around the house.  We cut it short because she had to get ready for church.  We have started using face time to show each other our flowers and projects around the house.  I am not too keen to have her see my waking up and drinking coffee face.  My southern roots go deep and no one see you until you put your face on.  Anyway it was a nice short conversation her telling me a bear came to her back door this week. 

She lives in the mountains and apparently this is pretty common.  Their property is steep and no one lives above them and bears periodically stroll through the back yard.  In my world the only bears are the two legged kind. She said she would just make sure and lock the door when she lets the dog in and out from now on.  Good idea.

In my recovery from the week I watched Moonstruck last night.  Watching things over and over help still my mind.  I really don't need to be engaged in something new and I have found knowing what will happen next puts me into a more meditative state before going to sleep.

In the movie they show a beautiful picture of a harvest moon next to the twin towers.  It always makes me sad to see that part of the movie.  I think about how much has changed about our world since then.  In the movie there is a scene at the airport where he is picking up his bags before our current security.  They use to just make sure you had your bag. 

The other movie I watch regularly is Family Man.  I really like Nicolas Cage and he is in both Moonstruck and Family Man.  Ironically Family Man was filmed just before the towers went down.  He drives to the city in the snow on Christmas day and their they are a really beautiful shot.  It was common up until then to show a picture of the towers in movies so the watcher knows what city the character lives. Now the show the Chrysler Building.

We are coming up on the anniversary an we have as a country for the most part moved on.  What choice do we have?  Our time here is short and every day we need to take care of what is right in front of us.  Our family and friends even strangers that we meet each day showing kindness and tolerance along the way.  Spending our time doing things that bring us joy and peace. 

With our electronic connections to the world today it can seem overwhelming.  We might feel like there is no point in doing anything.  Bad things have gone since man was in charge it is no wonder the planet is trying to get rid of us. The difference now is that we know more of the details and it makes it real and our fear is it could happen to us.  We have to find our peace within our own lives.

Even though this may seem life a sad post it isn't really.  Life is good and I feel encouraged that we as humans can overcome most anything thrown at us.  We get into trouble when we spend our free time preparing for some disaster that will probably never come.  Life is randon and short we can't afford to waste the time we have.  That is all I have to say about that.

Odd - Slump - Better than normal

I was in a slump for about a week.  I did something that I haven't done in more than five years and it may have triggered the emotions.  I got a massage.  I know it sounds decadent but in reality it is really good for your body and your mind especially if you don't have regular physical touch by another person or even a furry pet.

Apparently is raises your own feel good oxytocin hormone. The added benefit is that most pain we feel in our joints is really in our muscles surrounding our joints.  It can be intense the first time plus the next day you feel strange mostly from getting your muscles put back where they belong.  You also release toxins built up in the muscle.  If you drink a lot water afterward and for a few days you can avoid these feelings. This is therapeutic massage not the kind of massage you get on vacation.

How does this relate to being in a slump?  First I got the woman's name from my first and only
sponsor in the program.  When I started going to meetings again a few years ago she texted me this woman's name.  I eventually stopped going to that meeting because I wasn't feeling better and I think I secretly wanted to reconnect with her.  We didn't reconnect and she hardly said hello to me.

I don't think it was personal she is just busy doing a million things and I wasn't on her radar.  I have to admit since I went through the darkness and back into the light I can't be the person I was before.  I don't feel like I really belong anymore.  I had an awakening and there is no going back. 

I have been listening to Eckhart Tolle recently and I feel my own beliefs align with his teachings.  The peace I feel until my ego decides it is unhappy with how things are and that I am to blame for it.
Mostly I feel alone and happy but sometimes the voice in my head says "look what you have done - you have no one".  On good days I know that isn't true on the bad days I list all the people that are not in my life anymore.  Worse I know some of them I could call and we could see each other but the person they knew doesn't live here anymore.

I am odd and I know I am odd but I love and accept myself the way I haven't before.  I wish I could find other people like me but I am not sure where to go.  Today I am content to work in my yard and finish re-upholstering my grandmothers chair. 

One tip the massage therapist gave was that you should periodically change side of the bed.  She said couple don't do this enough and end up with serious mis - alignments in the their hips and backs.  I never thought of that before. 

Lizard Brain - Change

I feel change in the air and it is a little unsettling.  I think for the most part we want things to be the same and comfortable.  I have heard this called the lizard brain.  We want to relax and be free from worry and the way we do this is to imagine everything will stay just as it is today.  Our lizard brain wants us to get settled into a routine good or bad because change feels uncomfortable.

Right now I feel a little scared and excited because a few things that impact my daily routine.  We have an new person on our team. We are training her and she is bringing a new dynamic to our stagnant routine.  She is young and has opinions of her own and can see things with fresh eyes.  We are older and have encountered the limitations we have in our work life and have learned  to work with in the system.

It is nice to see the unstoppable nature of youth.  At her age I was setting the world on fire and didn't take no for answer.  This is her opportunity to buck the system and see if she make some changes. She doesn't have our history so she doesn't know why we have the limitations that we do. 

We get stuck and with time we learn to adapt to what is instead of what could be.  I think when you get older you realize that you have a limited amount of time and don't want to waste it stirring the pot. You want to get in and out as fast as possible so you can do what you want in your free time.

She is also an artist and studied art locally she gave me a name of a woman that is holding a great weekend workshop in September.  I signed up for it today. Change is good for getting things moving. I need a new personal life and I am trying to do that even if my lizard brain is nervous.

We are slow right now and have too much time on our minds. It is normal for the middle of summer but it feels weird to step off the roller coaster even for a few weeks. This is also puts my lizard brain on high alert. I want to be more comfortable with change and not see the unknown as possible pending doom.

Making changes - Fitting in - Not getting attached

Sometimes I can really get in trouble when I start analyzing my life.  I like being happy and I am really starting to get use to it.  I had a particularly unhappy week at work.  I lost my sense of peace.  This happens to me when I feel like I have put a lot of effort into something and it doesn't work out.  With work that means I didn't get a job that I have invested a lot of time in.

When I do my best and don't get too attached to people or outcomes I keep my peace. If I want something too much I feel a great loss when I don't  get it.  This is when my mind tells me I am not in the right job or even relationship.  I start comparing myself to others peoples outside success.  At work I have never thought of myself as a natural born salesperson.  I have to be authentic and when I am not it makes me feel bad some people appreciate this but the majority would prefer to be razzled and dazzled.

This is where I always feel like an outsider because I really am outsider.  I want to fit in but it feels dishonest to pretend I am something I am not. Customers bring their lives to the table and sometimes that it very stressful for me. Over the years I have learned not to get too attached to the outcome or the customer. I get too invested because I like them or because of the potential income from the job.

This just makes me feel trapped and desperate to close the deal.  Sometimes when I like someone too much and they do something that disappoints me I feel frustrated with myself for getting too involved.  I do feel like it is my fault because I can usually spot the people that mostly don't consider sales people as people. They don't appreciate the investment of time and energy that I put into the design process and it is only about the lowest bidder. 

What this week has shone me is that I need a fuller life outside of work.  I have put too many eggs in one basket and I need something more.  I love what I do creating new spaces for people and I mostly love the people I work for and with even if it sometimes doesn't work out. 

Yesterday I met with a woman who said to me "I have met with several people and I just kept coming back to you because you have a kind spirit."  The people that are nice and thoughtful never really get the attention they deserve and in this case I am talking about the customer not me.  The draining ones are the ones you remember and talk about.  It isn't right is it?

I have recovered from the week and made plans to visit a museum with a friend today instead working in the yard.  Trying to change things up a bit.  I also am planning on visiting a church in my neighborhood tomorrow.  I would like to get more involved in my community.  It is an denomination that is unlike my own upbringing but they seem open and friendly to all types of people from their videos on face book so we shall see.

Grabbing on to people or outcomes of any kind can only set you up for disappointments.  Also when you have a bad week and you feel unhappy it can give you the opportunity to step back and commit to making changes.  Even small changes can make you feel just a little bit more alive.

Left Behind

I met a woman yesterday that told me her husband left her after 35 years of marriage. She said her friends want her to just get over it.  She actually lives in my old neighborhood and I shared that I also had been left and that it takes a long time to get over idea of what you thought your life was going to look like.  He left her for another woman how shocking.

I have a lot to say about this topic.  I use to think that this was just bad people doing bad things or selfish people who really can't keep their promises.  Now I think that it is a lack of maturity and most people are looking for someone to fill the giant space inside we all carry.

Sadly the space is permanent and nothing or no one can fill that long term. Happy mature people know this and find ways to fill this space inside their promises. They see that being bored and feeling trapped is part of every one's life from time to time and you just have to find a way through it. 

In the middle years where chaos reigns and your just getting through the day you don't have time to think about your personal happiness. When the kids are older or for me when I found some success in my career it gives you a chance to look at where you are and the emptiness can surface. In our society of happily ever after we think out mate should be what makes us happy.

In my last relationship I could see this happening and I knew from experience that there was nothing I could do about it. I tried on several occasions to have the talk but I was dismissed. This was just like my first marriage avoid having grown up conversations about what wasn't working.  I just stayed busy until the solution of another woman solved everything.

It is the perfect solution for one person.  You can tell yourself you just made a mistake and you can start over an believe that you will never end up where you are now again. The boredom is certainly gone for at least a few years while you merge your life with someone else work out through all those issues.  No time to slow down and think.

I think the emptiness is always there and has to be filled by a lot of things.  I think for myself and the brain I was born with it needs a lot different  things to keep me from feeling bored and empty. I liked being in a relationship because it made me feel secure enough to pursue other interest.  It made me feel anchored and safe to just live.

I have been alone along time now and I have had to reached a point where I can be happy with who I am and know that sometimes I am going to be bored and restless.  I know that a relationship would not solve this for me and even if it did it would only be temporary.

I felt bad the that women whose husband left her and really understand what that feels like.  It is the  death of the dream that keeps us in grief so long.  We imagine our lives being a certain way and then we have to adapt to the new dream. If feels so overwhelming at first but eventually we see the dream was mostly in our minds and not our day to day reality.

Creativity - Enthusiasm - Getting things done

I took the long weekend off.  It was a surprise to me that with our rotating schedule that I could potentially be off for five days.  It is the best time to do this is around a holiday because few people are thinking about design while they are eating burgers and hot dogs with friends and family.

Since I am mostly solo these days I have been working on a few different projects.  First organizing my garage by hanging shelves and having a place to put all the plant stuff I am accumulating.  I want to make an attempt to grow plants from seed so I have save a few of the trays and little pots the annuals come in.  The question is will I do this or is this some fantasy that I have that I am a Monty Don in the making or in America Martha Stewart when she was doing everything.

I am a big idea person and I get so excited about something that I run out and buy what I need to do it and by the time I get home my enthusiasm is gone.  When I was young use to hate myself for this because all I could see around me was the unfinished projects.  It reminded me of the alcoholic in my life with grandiose ideas that never came to life or were left to me to finish.

I really don't like things undone or unfinished and this is also why back in the day I never started anything.  Once I was into to a project I just wanted to blow through it as fast as possible before I got bored with the whole thing.  This is why my job is perfect for me I can get excited about a project design something spectacular and turn it over to someone else to make it come to life.  I also like details so I know I have designed everything down to the last inch and it will work.

In my first marriage living with alcoholism I felt like I was always chasing my husbands big ideas. Once a friend gave him a bunch of wood from a deck they had torn down and he decided we were going to build a porch on to our mobile home. Did we know anything about attaching a porch to an aluminum structure.  Half way through it was abandoned.  After the divorce and a few houses later I sold that little mobile home and when they drug it off the lot the half built porch was still attached.

Today I don't really worry about finishing anything but my professional work.  Don't get me wrong I love looking at the "after" from the "before and after" more than most people do.  I relish in any kind of transformation of really anything.  My mind looks at something or someone and can see all the possibilities.  I really don't understand the limitations others put on life in general.

The creative spirit is a gift that has to be nurtured at all times.  When I get excited about something now and I run out and get supplies I don't beat myself up if I lose interest.  It is the anthem that I cherish now more than anything else.  It is that I can still find something that I am excited about.

I no longer analyze everything to death and take the joy out of my creativity.  I don't think of the thousand ways it won't work before investing my time and energy into something.  If it is an expensive project I do way out what I willing to invest and lose if in the end I hate it.

Right now I have three fish tanks that I would like to one into real tank with fish and the other two into elaborate terrariums. I know that I may not want to maintain any of these in the long run so do I want to make the effort and spend the money?  I am not like the guys on YouTube that this is their life to maintain these tanks and of course make videos about it.  It is their passion and I will never be them but the fantasy is there in my mind anyway.

I have been slowly working towards setting them up.  Looking at the lighting possibilities buying plants and getting new bulbs for the tanks.  The baby steps towards commitment.  I have made drawing of the plant tanks.  I want to build a rock wall with stones I already have.  I am getting juiced about it right now.  I can do this right?

My point is that sometimes it is the process and not the end result that is important.  The journey not the destination as they say.  I always hated that phrase because I thought "somebody has got to get things done."  I have accomplished a lot in my life and if you want something done just hand it over.

Being like that has earned me a lot of money but now I want to enjoy the moment more and savor the enthusiasm a new idea generates.  I am enjoying chasing the dream instead beating myself up for not getting it done.  In the end it is suppose to be fun and the thrill of finishing something doesn't last and then you got to find something else to do.

Not being enough - Order - Life choices

I have spent most of my life loathing who I am mainly because I am analytical and seemed wired for just looking at every thing that isn't quite the way it should be including myself.  Order has always been a destination for me.  If I can just get things in order I will be ready to tackle the big stuff.

I can sit down in a clean organized space materially and really get something done. At least this is what my more intense OCD part of me would like to believe but it is just not true.  This kind of order doesn't exist in this world.   I did visit a garage recently that looked like an operating room.  You can have the illusion of order but it takes a lot of time and money and doesn't make you happy.

On the spiritual front I think it is another form of control.  It is acceptable and everyone would like to be that neat and orderly but life is messy even if you can eat on your garage floor.

The spouse of the garage owner is a very angry person it felt oppressive to be in their home. It was beautifully decorated and everything was perfect but there was an elephant in the room.  This is when I wish I hadn't taken the red pill like in the Matrix movie. I can see the pain in others so clearly and wish sometimes that I didn't.  In the past I would try to help but people have to find their own way out.  Sometime it has to be a lot of pain to make you move forward.

I have always been able to see the pain in others.  Even as a child I remember questioning the behaviors of others and wondering why they were so unhappy.  Seeing just so clearly their suffering and asking questions that got me in a lot of trouble. My daddy called it the spirit of discernment. 

We all feel trapped in our lives and our pain from time to time.  We really think that we have no choices when it is that we are not ready for the consequences of the choices we need to make.  Staying too long in a marriage or a job.  Living with a controlling verbally abusive person who knows your fears and uses words to keep you from having the courage to move on. This situation can make you think you have no choice.  That was my first marriage.

In my second marriage it was the opposite but sometimes just as painful.  I lived with someone that didn't even see me. As long as I did everything to make things run smoothly and didn't change one thing then it was great. The truth was I was happy to be invisible left alone to entertain myself I was comfortable in that role.  It was the opposite of my relationship the the explosive alcoholic and  my childhood.  In both cases I knew I was less likely to get in trouble if I was invisible. 

I stayed because I imagined that there wasn't anything better and weeks turn into months and months turned into years and I felt like I had invested too much time to leave.  Besides what did I have to complain about ?  I felt safe and I was use to the pain so I just stayed busy to avoid thinking about it. I was happy that someone would have me and worried that I would end up alone.  It felt great compared to my last relationship even if I felt alone most of the time.

Of course I blamed myself for the choices I made but that doesn't help.  I made the choices I made because of where I was at that moment in my life.  I made that choice because I hadn't grown spiritually enough to see that I was repeating the past.  I married my daddy the second time.

A kind peaceful man that emotionally wasn't there ever. He only got attached to his wives and his religion nothing else existed.  He had great wisdom to offer strangers but if you were related to him you had to accept that he wasn't capable of really seeing you.  I loved him so much and before my mother died we were inseparable. When my stepmother came alone I no longer existed.

I guess my point is that we make the choices we make for a reason.  I think it is mostly because the person or the situation seems familiar.  Even if I hadn't married my father the second time it would have been someone that would have been similar.  That relationship felt good for a long time and I got to understand what it would be like to be my mother.

I am not sure how I got here today in the post but I can feel a little healing for myself. I am like my daddy in many ways. Offering hopefully good advice to strangers.  He fell in love with my mother and her religion.  He told me once that when he went to that first prayer meeting that he knew it was what he had been looking for all his life.  I figured he was attracted to the emotional freedom of the Pentecostal church. He grew up in a home where no one was allowed to have feelings except his abusive father.  The kids stayed silent at all cost.

We all have things to understand about ourselves and the choices we have made.  We can't believe there is anything really wrong with us. It important to find out what thoughts we have about ourselves that keep stuck and hurting ourselves.  I am at a place where I know what thoughts have caused me pain and I just want to be happy.

I have reached the end of my spiritual quest. I am glad I have stopped thinking I need to change to be happy I just need to enjoy today and my freedom from not being enough.

Making a decision - Stuck - Fantasy

I sometimes wonder if what I am writing here is doing anyone any good at this point. I started writing this blog when it felt like the only way for me to stay alive.  I mean that in a literal sense.  Every word that came out of me helped me to endure just one more day of the emotional excruciating pain I was experiencing at the time.  In my mind my life had been reduced to ashes and I was starting over again and I resisted with every fiber of my being.

Because of my resistance I stayed stuck for a long time.  I also believed this made my body react by rejecting health and my adrenals failed and my thyroid stopped working. I was thin and refused to go to the doctor. In my emotionally and mentally weakened state I wasn't sure there was a solution to my problem or if living was really for me.  I kept going despite what my mind was telling me.

I tried to do the things that worked for me when I was left at 30 by the man of my dreams. Ironically last night I dream about him I was lost in a strange city and the only phone number I had in my phone was his and I called him to come and get me.  He never said yes before we got disconnected.  He is still not there I guess. In my pain it felt hollow to repeat the things that I had done before I was more spiritually mature and it seemed obvious that all the work I had done on myself didn't keep bad things form happening to me. 

The first time I thought I could mold myself into a pillar of spiritual strength and attract only goodness in my life and it worked for awhile anyway but in the end I still wasn't good enough and was left again. I couldn't reconcile the fact I was exactly where I was before.  This conflict cause me to stay stuck for what seemed forever.

What I would say to the broken person I was then is that crap happens to everyone and there is no magic bullet to stop it. You can only do so much and then you got to just live and be happy being who you are. We get trapped in the idea of working on ourselves forever when it is suppose to free us to accept ourselves and just live. 

I feel feel whole now for the first time in my life. I am thinking about what am I going to do with the rest of my life. I do want to live deliberately for a change deciding how I want to spend my time instead of just riding things out and waiting for something to happen.

Yesterday I spent 2 1/2 hours on the phone with my sister using face time for the first time.  It was nice we showed each other our planted flowers in the yard. She has a lot things in her world that she can't do anything about right now.  You can't really solve other people's problems they have to be ready to receive help. I am an excellent example of that. She isn't ready to hear that.

We get entrenched in our version of life and only when we are ready to admit that it isn't working can we move on.  We don't want other people poking holes in our fantasy version of life.  Only when the pain becomes too much do we start looking for an answer. Our mind says "I can't do this anymore". 

I have had a great journey here with this blog and I haven't decided to quit writing yet but I feel this is coming to an end for me.  It seems I am getting mostly traffic from some porn site in Italy so it doesn't feel that I am making a difference.  Until next time.

Parents Wedding Facing the truth

I am spending the weekend alone which isn't such a shock but this weekend I am not particularly inspired to do anything.  I did pull weeds yesterday morning but that is about the only routine thing I have done.  I usually have a least a to do list my head but I decided to just do nothing.

This isn't something I am at all comfortable doing and lets just say that my idea of doing nothing can sometimes translate into another persons doing a lot.  I talked to my sister for a couple of hours yesterday while she fixed herself lunch and then walked to the bottom of her property and pulled weeds while we talked. Our friendship is growing as she realizes we are more the same then she imagined.

Today I got up and decided to clean my home office and move towards changing it into a studio. I don't really like this room and when I bring work home I sit at the dining room table. The office is paneled at the bottom and has a large bookcase a perfect set up for a working space.  It is northeast facing and seems dark and uninviting.  I painted it a saturated blue to contrast with the dark paneling but it made it worse. I do write my blog here but that is really it.

To start the cleaning process I first took the two last boxes of my old business files upstairs. When I got there I faced a bed covered with family photos.  A few months ago I started looking at mostly my mothers family photos and got too overwhelmed and left it. Today I decided to put them away and move on and then I stumbled upon my parents wedding album. It is the original with thick white pages with plastic on both sides of each page. It has no cover or order and some of the plastic has cracked.

This album used to be kept in the bottom drawer of my mothers secretary. As a child I loved to pull it out regularly and look at my parents getting married.  I have often thought of creating a new album but this one has a smell that reminds me of my childhood.  Probably off gases of the plastic they used back then but I could bear to get rid of the original album.

Today I brought it downstairs and started scanning the pictures.  I want to make a digital photo album for my sister.  Along with the wedding the album has all the professional pictures of our family.  Ones with Santa and a few during a time when my mom bought one of those packages from Olan Mills.  I have added a few random photos I have found over the years. 

My mother had dreams for herself and for us.  She made every moment count with her entrepreneur spirit she made our lives feel full and safe.  She kept us motivated and everything at our house was organized and drama free. Her own family growing up was plagued with addiction and lived drama to drama this sometimes invaded our lives with phone calls in the middle of the night. She always downplayed the situation and everything went back to normal. 

Looking at my little family today starting with my mothers late teenage years.  She was at a dinner getting and award for vocational leadership to the last professional family picture just before she got sick. Her smile from the first picture change from genuine to fake to even forced in the last one.  She gave up her own ambitions mostly at the direction of the church. It was a choice she made and certainly had nothing to do with my father who would have joined the circus to be with her.

Her mother and the indoctrination she received from her church kept her on the straight and narrow.  She chose that path and lived it with her whole heart and would not be happy about me writing this.  We make choices based on what we know and who is influencing us day to day.  My dad raised a Methodist loved the rigidity of my mothers religion. He didn't like to make decisions for himself so it was great to have the church do this for him.

Looking at all the pictures together has helped me to see the bigger picture and where I come from.  I can see where everything is a choice and how I can choose again. My mother didn't choose to get sick but I think she lived against who she really was and that can make you sick. I only remember her wanting to get well for my father.  Anything treatment he found she would try.  In the end because she had to have faith she couldn't be honest with us girls that she wasn't going to make it.

I am glad my sister and I are getting closer.  We have been alone most of our lives emotionally and spiritually with only our faith to get us through.  I am grateful for my family history and the values both my parents gave to me.  It has served me well.

Spiritual Genetics - Self Acceptance

I had a marathon conversation with my sister this week.  She called at 9:30 and we talked until 12:30.  I wasn't expecting this and had to be at work at 8:30 the next morning but took it all in stride. I am happy that we are really starting to get to know each other. 

My sister like me has spent most of her life alone emotionally.  She feels she has a leg up on me because she has children but now that they are grown they are starting to see that we are not normal. There is a number of reasons for that first with our Pentecostal upbringing we were taught that the things of this world are not important. If you have talents and abilities then you use them for God's good and to encourage people to find Jesus. 

We are analytical and our minds are in a constant state of processing and we aren't really interested in small talk or the latest TV super show.  My sister has stayed close to our family faith and pretty isolated to what is going on in the world.  My brother in law keeps Fox News running constantly on the TV so that gives you an idea of the slant of the house.  Everything points to the end of time.

I once said something about Tony Robbins to my sister and she had no idea who that was. I think it is funny that after such different lives we do have a lot of spiritual ideas in common.  I talked to her about the spiritual books I have read and she comes back with a christian book that says the same thing. 

We haven't been close all these years.  She has called me regularly most of my life but usually she did most of the talking.  She is having an awakening now with her kids wishing she was more like other people.  She wants to withdraw from their lives because she doesn't measure up in their eyes.

I told her that we are who we are and that there is nothing wrong with us.  Our mother gave us the gift of individualism and knowing what is important.  We were born in the deep end of the pool and the sooner we accept ourselves the happier we will be. 

I have always wished to be like other the people but I am not.  I have finally come to terms with just living and enjoying who I am.  I did tell her that loving herself will make her feel less like a victim.  The kids will come around one day and see that she has dedicated her life to making them strong individuals.  They want to fit in right now and they are not sure what to do with mom the spiritual intellectual. 

I was happy when she told me that during a recent family get together she was able to take a walk and enjoy the spectacular scenery.  She said it was the first time she didn't try to be something she wasn't.

We can't get away from who we are at the core.  My sister is an amazing person and has done a lot with her life despite a lot of road blocks and a rough start.  I think it is funny how much the same we are and how only now she can see that.  Spiritual genetic I guess.  Thanks Mom.

Rejection - Truth - Letting go

I didn't realize we would be closed on Monday for the holiday.  When you are in sales you don't always get those expected holiday.  I is almost 100 today and I just came in from putting the last bag of mulch on the flower bed.  I had to stop a few times to rest or cool off and the last bag I had to drag behind me to get it out there.

I pride myself on my ability to adapt to the heat.  I can't really say I adapt well to anything else. I listened to T.D. Jakes while I was on a heat break.  He was preaching at Lakewood this morning and had a pretty powerful message.  I have to say that history is repeating itself.  My Aunt Ruby use to make fun of my grandmother for watching TV evangelist and then in her own last days that is all she wanted to do.  Now here I am doing the same thing not that it is my last days.

I have found that everything in life that is painful comes from resistance.  When you resist what is then that means you want something else instead.  No matter how hard you wish for something different you are sitting right in the middle of something you don't want.  Whether that is a job or a relationship or a even a sickness you can't change it in the moment.

Today's message was very powerful.  When you are in the dark it means there is an absence of light. Darkness isn't evil or powerful just a place where you just happen to be at the moment.  All growth starts in the darkness and only when it emerges from the ground does it even need the light.

I have had long periods of time where I just wished I was someplace else.  When I headed into the darkest of depression I wanted life itself to be over.  I could not endure not one more minute of the nothingness I felt. I thought about that time when he was speaking this morning.

I can only say it was some sort of grace that saved me. Right now I can remember sitting on the porch when something turned inside of me and a voice said "you are doing this to yourself".  I started thinking about that and wondering if that was true. I felt that I had been rejected so many times by the people that were suppose to love me that there must be something about me that made me unlovable.

This was my core belief and every thought I had about it proved me right.  I am very logical person and looked at all the facts.  I have the kind analytical brain that latched on to these facts and could only come to this one conclusion.   It had to be my fault.  A child raised in a fundamentalist home where you take responsibility for yourself and your actions this was how we thought.  You must do better next time.

I never occurred to me that in life random things happen to everybody all the time.  Even at birth you could be born just about anywhere to anybody.  Anybody can get sick and die.  I should have realized that when my own mother died.  But my child brain decided that if I worked hard and was the best person I could be I could prevent bad things from happening to me. 

Plenty of bad things happened to me from that point on but somehow I just thought I wasn't trying hard enough. This is an exhausting way to live trying to out smart unknown random stuff from happening and blaming myself when it did. 

That day on the porch I just gave up and let go.  I decided to not to blame myself and not even look for an answer to why I ended up where I did.  I rested from the responsibility of my situation and I got better slowly.  I even decided that if I was unlovable there was nothing I could do about it. I was in the darkness for a long time but eventually I got rid of the thoughts that were hurting me.

I am a happy person now and feel sad for that girl inside me that didn't know any better.  I raised myself without a mother and there were things I didn't know.  I am smart and used the spiritual knowledge of others to get where I needed to go.  In the end I had to see it was my own thoughts about myself that hurt me more than being rejected by other people.

You can't always trust you own thoughts about any situation.  For me I had see that it didn't matter whether my thoughts were true or not I had to just let them go and start loving myself.